RBSotS1 SG12

[ZedF]

Turn 100: It didn't take too long to put together an attack force for Altair; I already had three mass driver destroyer squadrons in the area at Fornax and Rizdet, so I just needed to marshal them at Po'chak while the latter first built a rip bore and then built a bunch of assault shuttle destroyers. Meanwhile, Fornax backfilled its own defenses, in case the Hivers should come calling and in anticipation of casualties at Altair.

I knew this would likely be sufficient because I can monitor defense levels at my targets easily, as I'm only targeting worlds that are very close to worlds that are already on my node network. Unless the Hivers reacted to my buildup at Po'chak by gating in additional forces, it was going to fall -- and I was timing my fleets' arrivals in the area to the turn before the attack would be launched. The Hivers had a limited window to react, and they missed it.







But I wasn't planning to only attack the Hivers. I was also building up to attack Ankatea, before the Hivers were able to establish a gate over their ally's world. I had defense fleets at Mitrou and Uaxhaktos, but would need more. Fortunately my colonies in the area other than Mitrou were just about done maturing, so I was able to start on fleet construction all along this node chain as well. When I bored the route to Ankatea, however, I did see something that gave me a little bit of pause.



The Morrigi have strikeforce CnC, it seems. And if the Morrigi do, it's a fairly safe bet that the Liir do as well, since the Liir appear to be the most advanced of the AI empires at the moment (and since I saw CA sats at Shononu.) I haven't seen any signs of cruisers from the Hivers or Tarka yet, but surely they are coming, and when they do, that could put a hold on any offensive plans until I can match that achievement. If I want to grab some AI territory, I'd best get to making hay while the sun still shines!



As far as the Ankatea attack itself goes, well... while the Morrigi did have a Strikeforce CnC there when I bored the route, I also noticed they had a very small complement of mostly-not-combat-destroyers along with it. True, they did have almost 30 destroyers there, and I wasn't really sure what all of those designs were. Still, it didn't look like the Morrigi had their fleets really well-organized, and it appeared that they only have basic nuclear missiles and gauss cannons equipped on their ships and sats. Taken as a whole, not particularly scary.

That Strikeforce CnC just meant that I needed to build some extra cannon fodder, which by now I've gone ahead and done. Of course now that I am ready to launch the attack, the Morrigi have just decided to send half their Ankatea defense fleet to Xhicos for some reason. So I guess I'm pretty confident the attack should succeed now! It had better; between the build-up for the Ankatea attack and the buildup for the Altair attack, my fleet maintenance costs have crept up about as high as I am comfortable with at the moment -- not to mention my colonization plans for a number of high-CH worlds on my node network. I could definitely use the income from capturing Ankatea.

So I certainly can't afford to leave my attack fleets idle. The fleets that took Altair were scheduled to attack Akrotiri after that, but the Hivers have given me an interesting problem; they've decided to attack Akrotiri in force as well, and have 50 destroyers enroute. The Tarka already had over 40 destroyers at Akrotiri, but have started reinforcing in response to this threat, and now have 55 destroyers there. It looks like a pretty even fight, but the planet missile batteries should turn the tide in the Tarka's favour.

Now, the fact that the Tarka will probably keep reinforcing Akrotiri as long as the Hivers are enroute means that I will need still more force in order to launch my own attack, even though I really would prefer to cap my military investment at the moment. And I don't want the Tarka to defeat the Hiver attack too easily. Hence, the interesting problem I mentioned earlier. I can either delay my attack until after the Hiver force arrives and schedule my assault for the following turn, in order to fight the hopefully weakened victor, or else I can launch an attack, do as much damage to the planet as possible in one turn, withdraw for repairs and reinforcement, and then attack again the turn after the Hivers attack the Tarka.

So, fun times ahead! Here's an overview of the situation more generally. There's really no point in comparing to the SG team's game any longer; their decision to avoid the core rather than fight for a share of it stunted their game and turned it in a completely different direction. The curious can still go back and pick up their T100 save to make a comparison, if desired.

For those curious instead about my own efforts, here is the save file.

[ZedF]

Turn 110: Expansion is starting to slow now as I am about out of worlds I can grab without a fight. Not that it has stopped entirely; I did manage to grab Akrotiri from the Hivers after they took it from the Tarka after I softened the planet up for them with a shuttle bombardment wave. I also followed that up by continuing on and taking Melos, which turned out to be colonizable but only size 1; still, it's another step toward domination of the core. And, of course, the attack on Ankatea went off without a hitch.

Naturally I am also still having to defend my empire, and incoming attacks continue to rain down from all sides and directions. I just repulsed a 16-ship Hiver attack at Procyon, and the same fleets that did so are now enroute to Sera to beat back another 25 Hiver ships there. The Morrigi sent a weak attack at Uaxhaktos which was defeated easily.

Of perhaps more concern is a 15-ship Liir fleet enroute to Altair; the vocal warning accompanying its detection was indicative of a medium-size fleet, which suggests these are mostly or entirely cruisers, not destroyers. I don't want to pull fleets off my assault groups working their way through the Hiver holdings in the core, so I am beefing up my defensive presence through fleet construction; there are lots of grav wells in the core slowing the Liir fleet down, so I have plenty of time.

My economy is already starting to recover nicely from my high-CH-colony binge, so I can afford the extra ships easily now. Plus, now that I've completed VRF, I'm working on Cybernetic Interfaces, which should further help with economic issues such as terraforming costs and resource exhaustion due to overharvesting. Being able to build ships even faster won't hurt, either. After that, I think I need to either get more accurate weapons (i.e. AP drivers) or move up to cruisers and address the CnC disparity -- or both, in some order.

In many cases, especially if I already had better small mount weapons than gauss cannons, I would want cruisers before better medium mount weapons, due to the chance to get Biomes. However, as Zuul I am unlikely to get Biomes and don't really need them, so that motivation is lessened. Moreover, cruisers tend to be relatively expensive to field, and I certainly can't afford to spam them nearly everywhere the way I can with destroyers. Getting Orbital Foundries, Cruiser Construction, and Data Synergy would certainly be more expensive and time consuming than getting AP drivers. These factors would argue in favour of upgrading my weapons first.

On the other hand, Zuul cruisers have a LOT more medium mounts than Zuul destroyers, and eventually I am going to need that firepower. Moreover, Data Synergy lets me upgrade the effectiveness of my existing navy by combining squadrons into strikeforces, whereas weapons tech requires new construction to be useful. I haven't decided which path to take first yet, but I'll need to decide soon.


Turn 120: A small update for now, with a more general summary planned for T125...

two battles with Liir strikeforces attacking my systems. First at Liimen:








Then again at Altair:








Frankly I expected these to be tougher, but the Liir don't have good brawling weapons yet. As a result I decided after completing Cyber Interfaces to be greedy and go for Expert Systems as well.

AP Drivers would also be nice, as right now I still am autoresolving a lot of fights, but I would rather be fighting more of them manually. I'm using autoresolve because regular mass drivers perform better in AR than they do in manual combat, especially when I am going up against enemy destroyers (and not assaulting mature planets, where I need active control to use shuttles effectively.) With AP drivers I would have a more appropriate weapons to tackle armoured destroyer swarms with. Taking a long time to get cruisers with weapons that really only perform well in AR probably wouldn't be as effective or as fun.

Better point defense would be nice too, but, point defense? What point defense? For my Zuul in this game, apparently that's not a thing. Still, it hasn't stopped us so far...

[BlueTemplar]

Getting AP drivers instead of CR would be an interesting decision! (It would also upgrade your DE' small mounts!)

I guess it depends on several factors :
- Do you miss often?
- Do your shots bounce often?
- Could you kite enemy ships with AP longer range?
- Can you afford full CR fleets?
- Is the extra survivability of CR important?
- Do you need the mission sections that CR bring like Refinery, Repair and Salvage, Boarding, Scavenger?

Also, I think that in this situation, you can hope to shorten a lot the time to get AP drivers by an early breaktrough since it's a single tech?

[ZedF]

- Do you miss often?

Not so much in AR, which is why I've been using it a fair bit. In manual, I can get hits reasonably often against Liir CAs, but over half my shots are still missing I suspect. Hiver and Tarka are bringing mostly DDs though, so probably even more misses there. Haven't had to fight Morrigi recently, but I know they have cruisers.

- Do your shots bounce often?

Against Hiver/Tarka? Very much so. Against Liir? Not so much; they appear to lack armour.

- Could you kite enemy ships with AP longer range?

Not really. Using DDs, and lacking PD, a significant fraction of my overall firepower is still in my small mounts; AP gauss range is not that long. Moreover, as Zuul with cheap cannon fodder ships and the desire to keep the pressure on, I'd rather go for more decisive battles anyway.

- Can you afford full CR fleets?

Probably to a point, but it's a long way to Data Synergy from here. I could potentially add a cruiser to each of my DD swarms for extra punch, but I don't think Zuul CAs with only mass drivers are necessarily the best deal at this point in time. Besides, sticking with DDs, I can afford to be everywhere.

- Is the extra survivability of CR important?

My DDs cost less than 8k each! They are eminently replaceable. The extra survivability of CAs would be important if I weren't mostly winning.

- Do you need the mission sections that CR bring like Refinery, Repair and Salvage, Boarding, Scavenger?

Certainly they would be useful, but at this point I am able to kill worlds without them, so they aren't essential quite yet.

Also, I think that in this situation, you can hope to shorten a lot the time to get AP drivers by an early breaktrough since it's a single tech?

Absolutely, it's possible.

[ZedF]

Turn 125: I'm now at the point where I am starting to slowly steamroller the other empires. This isn't any kind of blitzkrieg attack; I just have a really big navy of expendable cannon fodder ships that are nevertheless effective enough in combat to get the job done. With 4 squadrons each containing ~20 shuttles, and 20 squadrons of mass driver destroyers each containing 15-20 ships, I can attack along multiple salients at the same time, being limited mainly by the need to bore new attack routes while maintaining my node network. I've just about pushed the Hivers entirely out of the habitable portion of the core, leaving them only one world guarded by a Morrigi asteroid monitor and a handful of iceballs that nobody can colonize, plus their original arm. I've also taken out two Tarka colonies and a Liir colony, and am about to eliminate a third Tarka colony.

All this military expansionism has allowed my Zuul to claim several more worlds as well, to the point where I believe I have about 5 times as many colonies as my next closest competitor, the Liir. The stat screen has me at #1 in all categories save tech, and the loading screen has me at #1 as well. Given that I just recently faced the cream of the Liirian navy in combat twice and emeged victorious with good kill ratios both times, I think the ability of the other races to resist my continued expansion is pretty much broken. It seems to me that Liir have run out of time to both research and build a navy that is capable of countering mine.

Originally the SG team called this game somewhere after T200 when Sparky showed up to ruin their party, but given the current game state, I'm reasonably confident I could eliminate all the other empires by T200. I was thinking of calling the game at this point, as of this save file, rather than waiting around another hundred-plus turns for Sparky to make his appearance.







But just recently I loaded the game from the perspective of one of the other empires. It turns out I don't have to wait nearly that long for Sparky after all! Of course I'm now working on other projects, so it might take a little while before I can get back into this game and continue making updates. Still, it seems worthwhile to continue just a little longer...

[BlueTemplar]

Is it even possible to kill Sparky with Mass Driver DE's???

[DervMan]

I don't know of a problem that can't be solved with (enough) Mass Drivers!

[ZedF]

An infinite number of mass driver DDs wouldn't be enough if they die too fast to longer ranged weapons, such that they never get a chance to shoot. Plus there's the fixed 4 minute timer to consider as well. So no, I don't think mass driver DDs are the answer here.

[BlueTemplar]

Well, 500 of them in autoresolve...

Of course using autoresolve against a Grand Menace would be such a shame!

[ZedF]

That and 500 DDs is about my entire navy; getting it all to one place at one time and correctly anticipating where that place is ahead of Sparky's arrival... well let's just say that that, in and of itself, would be a monumental challenge!

[DervMan]

Again, nothing that can't be solved without sufficient Mass Drivers! ;)

[ZedF]

I already gave you one example where it wouldn't work.

You need another? How about grav shields.

[BlueTemplar]

Set engines for ramming speed!

[ZedF]

Your ship's engines may accelerate mass but they still do not count as a mass driver.

[ZedF]

T125 wrapup: Since I haven't actually observed evidence of the System Killer being in the game yet, my Zuul empire continues to proceed as if it had no such foreknowledge... AP drivers were the next target, so that's what remains up for research. Wipe out the size 2 Tarka colony at Ke'Aloru in exchange for 7 ships.

T126: Defend Procyon from 55 Morrigi ships -- haven't seen them in a while. Mostly destroyers, but our defense forces in this arm have been busy for a while now and could stand some additional replenishment. We only have about as many ships as them, rather than outnumbering as per our usual wont. In the end we autoresolve, taking a lot of damage to the planet, but trading 27 ships for most of their fleet; they will be finished next turn.

T127: Action is at Shononu this time. The intent was to wipe out the defenders, the planet having been glassed previously. Except the Liir must have had some colonizers there as they have re-settled the planet, making auto-resolve problematic. Moreover we didn't bring the shuttles along this time, so we have to close for a direct assault on the world. In total we lose 23 destroyers in exchange for 3 Liir cruisers, 17 destroyers, a few sats, and of course the colony. This relatively even exchange is acceptable; our ships are a lot cheaper and more readily replaceable than theirs. We do have to abandon the attack though, as 33 reinforcements are about to arrive.

T128: Here's an event I haven't seen before...



Guess what's the only thing in the game that can cause something like that? The loss of Uwirii itself is a non-event for my Zuul; that was an unexplored world in Liir space. A bigger question is where Sparky decides to go from here.

Another is, what if anything can I do about it? I don't have PD in my tree, haven't researched mines or disruptor torps, and would have difficulties employing either of the latter in deep space intercepts anyway due to being Zuul. Without doing a deep space intercept, I don't think mines will work. Either way, I guess it will depend on what path he takes and whether I can get a big enough fleet in front of him.



In other news, the big battle this turn is at Keu'Paak, another world where I am trying to clear away (some of) the defense forces so that I can eventually claim it, the planet having already been glassed previously. There are over 100 defenders here in comparison to my 50+ attackers, so I can't autoresolve and expect things to go in my favour. I expect another bloody inconclusive fight; nevertheless, if I can keep the Tarka on the defensive and whittle his navy down, that's still a good thing.



T129: We keep whittling at the Tarka at Keu'Paak, and take out 27 of their ships in exchange for 10 of ours. Our fleet is too badly damaged to continue, though, and has to withdraw for repairs, which will stall further progress here for a while. We also destroy another Tarkasian fleet of 33 DDs attacking Gotham.